April 30, 2007

I just read Cesar's Way by Cesar Millan (aka The Dog Whisperer), which is a book teaching dog owners how to handle issues with their dogs. Dogs have a lot of energy and were made to roam many miles per day looking for food, so it is important to walk your dog at least 30 minutes a day, if not longer. Also it is important for people to assert themselves as pack leaders. This means the dog should walk next to you, not in front, and that you must go through a door first before your dog does. Dogs communicate with energy, so they sense your emotions and feed off of that. The pack leader should project a calm, assertive energy.

Ruby has been acting up lately and my coworker lent me the book when I was telling her about Ruby's obsessive behaviors. I have been taking Ruby on walks, and on those days, she does behave more calmly and less obsessively. Another behavior I am trying to curb is when she jumps on visitors entering the house. This weekend, she had to sit calmly before the visitor could pass through the front door. It may take a while to resolve the power struggle between the two of us, but I think that inherently she is a submissive dog and will be happier if I assert myself as the pack leader.

Update: Just got back from taking Ruby for a walk and this is the first time I used a short leash and forced her to walk beside me. She has a harness so she doesn't injure her neck from pulling. She pulled the entire time. This may be quite a power struggle.

Posted by megabeth at 01:07 PM | Comments (2)

April 25, 2007

I want to have a greater awareness of my spending habits so I created a monthly expense worksheet in Excel. I also wanted to get some practice using functions in Excel. Here it is if you want to use it.

Posted by megabeth at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)

April 24, 2007

I've never liked perfume; I will walk the length of a shopping mall just to avoid going through the perfume department in a department store. But something with me has changed, and now if I smell women's perfume, it sends me into fits. Terrible headaches, burning eyes, and the resultant foul mood. I am going to have to ask the females that I work with to stop wearing perfume at work, and that is going to be a difficult conversation for me to have. HOWEVER... why are people wearing perfume to work anyway? Work is NOT the place for sexy-time. And I am very sure that I do not need to remember anyone five minutes after they left my work area. Any suggestions on how to ask them to please stop, before I jump out the window? Is this a manager-intervention situation?

Posted by megabeth at 03:56 PM | Comments (5)

April 23, 2007

I had a look-see in this cookbook and saw so many recipes that I want to try, so I bought one for myself. This weekend I wanted to cook peach muffins (not in the new cookbook), so I tried out this recipe. They were good, but since peaches are not in season, I had to use the frozen variety. Making muffins from scratch is very easy, and I prefer to make them that way from now on instead of using pre-made mix.

Additional home projects (with the help of highly skilled labor) this weekend included working in the yard/garden, shopping for various home decor sundries, and installing a ceiling fan in my bedroom. The ceiling fan project turned out to be more difficult than planned (typical of most home improvement projects) because (1) there was no ceiling fixture so a hole had to be cut in the sheetrock and the box installed, and (2) all of the junction boxes in the attic were full, so additional junction boxes had to be installed.

The coming week and weekend are going to be total suckage because I have to study for final exams.

Posted by megabeth at 09:48 AM | Comments (0)

April 20, 2007

I have two non-paying bidders out of three auctions. One says he doesn't have any money (that doesn't stop anyone else from buying anything) and the other has gone incommunicado. The first has feedback of over 100 and the second has feedback in the 200s. It surprises me, since I usually only see NPB activity going on with sub-25 users. eBay doesn't offer much recourse for non-paying bidders. Sure, you can leave negative feedback and fill out a NPB form (which is akin to a slap on the wrist), but in the end, the item did not sell, and people who would have bought were blocked by people who weren't serious about buying.

Posted by megabeth at 09:03 AM | Comments (0)

April 18, 2007

Yesterday I rode for the first time in seven weeks. The weather was awesome. I took it very easy and didn't ride too far or for too long. The muscles in my neck and back were protesting being in that position and I still can't turn my neck to either side very easily. However, after the ride my neck muscles felt better. The PT said that I should start exercising again to get the blood flowing and that would help to loosen everything up.

There's a silver lining to everything, and despite my pissing and moaning about being in chronic pain, this two-month-long incident has benefited and changed me.

Howard had sent me an email a while back advising me to learn how to not-give-a-shit. The problem is that being wound up and having a Type AAAAAAAA personality makes it very difficult for me to simply say, "OK, I am going to be calm now, and I will sit here and relax." Can't do it to save my life. What's required is a gradual unwinding over a long period of time, like peeling layers off an onion, in order to reverse the build up of tension and stress that I have subjected myself to over an equally long period of time.

Being physically sidelined by a neck injury forced me to sit still and ponder the notion of learning how to relax. I am so stubborn and hyperactive that there is no person in this world who can force me to sit still. It *requires* a physical disablement in order for me to do this, and all the while I am whining about how I can't get up and do this or that, and how badly that sucks. It would be easier to tame a wild horse or a feral cat.

I give credit for the mental portion of this unwinding to a special person who has taught me how to slow down and smell the roses. He stayed with me, took care of me, and kept my mind off of being in pain. Type A people tend to feed off of each other's Type A-ness, and I needed a Type B person to show me how to slow down and let myself be spoiled. It's a nice place over there in Type B-world. :)

Cycling was an addiction, which has now been broken. During last night's ride I was having fun, but did not feel in need of it to make myself happy. My confidence tends to depend upon being consistent and following the rules, so my training program was running my life. If I had put the energy into my career that I was putting into training, I would now be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. I realize now that it doesn't matter if I miss a training ride, skip a few days or do something different than what the training schedule said to do, because in the big scheme of things, it doesn't matter.

The past few years have been a blur of one stressful activity after another, and I had forgotten how to toss off my stressors and do things that I enjoy, like gardening and cooking and home improvement projects.

I love cycling and I would like to do some races this year, but I do not feel interested in setting any specific goals. Well, other than continuing to relax and enjoy myself.

Posted by megabeth at 12:50 PM | Comments (2)

April 17, 2007

The engineering mind + domesticity = scary. :) Here are some of my own Martha-style suggestions:

Since I started cooking again, I wanted to restock my spice cabinet. Those little bottles of McCormick's or whatever can run $4-5 each, so I visited the little Mexican section in the grocery store (Publix and Wal-Mart have them). There you can find baggies of spices for 59 cents each. Then I put the contents of the baggie into the empty plastic spice container. World Market also sells lower-priced baggies of spices. I don't know why that little plastic container carries a $3 premium. It's a racket.

Another thrifty thing to do is buy the four-packs of screw-top wine bottles when cooking with wine. That way I don't have to open up an entire bottle of white wine and use only 1/2 cup of it for a recipe.

Every once in a while I cook up a huge pot of spaghetti and meatballs. I put the leftovers in 2-serving containers in the freezer for anytime I want to cook up a quick meal.

I keep a cheese pizza in the freezer (DiGiorno or Freschetta or whatever). Frozen pizzas usually have sucky toppings but with a cheese pizza it is easy to cook a decent meal with fresh tomatoes, artichoke hearts, canadian bacon or ham, chicken, bell peppers, etc.

Also I keep frozen strawberries in the freezer if I want a smoothie but also for anytime I make pancakes or waffles and did not have any fresh fruit in the fridge.

I harvest seeds at the end of each summer and put them in ziplock bags in the fridge with the date written on the bag. This year I have basil, sunflowers and zinnias.

My tomato plants will soon need staking or cages. In Alabama it is too hot for metal cages, in my opinion. (They burn the plants.) It is also not good to use treated wood, but untreated wood decays quickly. I am going to try bamboo poles this year.

The cheapest and most delicious snack in the world: Popcorn kernels + canola oil + Tony Chachere's Creole seasoning on the popcorn kernels BEFORE cooking on the stove. The seasoning is evenly cooked into the popcorn.

Posted by megabeth at 12:54 PM | Comments (4)

The other day I was at dinner with some friends and we stopped by a Mediterranean grocery store on the way out because it was there and it was open. I enjoy rummaging through ethnic grocery stores; I could spend a few hours looking at food items and wondering what in the world they are. We saw some Greek chewing gum at the cash register and decided to buy a few pieces. The flavor is "mastic". To me that word means "adhesive glue", but it is actually a herb. The look on our faces when we tried the gum was priceless.

We decided to trick a friend who was standing outside talking on his cell phone. "Here is some delicious chewing gum!", we said. He purposefully opened the wrapper without looking at it, and put the gum in his mouth.

Hahahaha.

Posted by megabeth at 10:06 AM | Comments (0)

April 16, 2007

I don't look at the hit logs for this site that often, but last week I was surprised by what I saw. In short, there were hundreds of hits daily from Google search engines, particularly Google Images. The hit log looked very similar to what you see when someone is hot linking images from your site. I tried removing the images that were getting hit by Google Images once every other minute, but the hits continued despite that the images were no longer there. I asked myself if it really mattered whether or not people came across the site using Google as a search engine, and the answer is no. So I blocked Google and Google Images from crawling my site using a robots.txt file. (Here is how to do that.) I don't know what the bandwidth limitations are for this site in particular, but I don't like the site getting bombed with useless hits.

Posted by megabeth at 10:05 AM | Comments (0)

I wanted to ride yesterday but the temperature outside was 45 degrees. I am saying this OUT LOUD so that the weather tomorrow will be 15 degrees with 13" of accumulated snow and ice. I AM RIDING MY BIKE TOMORROW. Okay? Now bring on the wintry weather. Bring on the snow. Bring on the ice and sleet. Nevermind that it is April! Let's have another January. Also, I am going to the beach this spring so I suggest that an ice age be brought upon the U.S Southeast to prevent me from feeling any joy. Thank you.

Posted by megabeth at 08:44 AM | Comments (1)

April 13, 2007

Manufacturers of pepperoncini beware: Megabeth is depleting this year's inventory.

To replace the chemical highs one gets from exercise, I have taken to eating large quantities of pepperoncini out of the jar. The largest jar I have been able to find at the grocery store is 32 ounces. Why not 568 ounces? A 32 ounce jar lasts about two days. And no, I am not pregnant.

Wunder-PT says I can start riding my bike this weekend. The main issue with that is that since I lack a (figurative) braking mechanism, I will have a friend coming along with me to make sure that I do not push too hard during my re-initiation back into cycling. (Also, it's good that I did not throw out those training wheels.)

Posted by megabeth at 09:57 AM | Comments (1)

April 11, 2007

I've been getting back into cooking since being grounded by the neck problem. That's probably why I planted my garden so early; I want some fresh veggies and herbs to work with as soon as possible. My plants survived the freeze this weekend - hooray!

I cooked dinner for company last night; I like making mouths happy. Here is what I made - everything turned out yummy:

-grilled salmon with fresh rosemary and garlic
-grilled roma tomatoes with a basil and balsamic vinegar marinade
-baked zucchini tossed with penne pasta and parmesan cheese
-and for dessert, strawberry kiwi tarts with custard

Oooooh YUMMMMMM!!!

The tarts turned out just like what you see in the bakery. There was a near disaster with the custard since I wasn't stirring it while it was cooking, but the mixer restored its smooth consistency. I assumed that the grocery store would have some pre-made frozen tart shells but I did not find anything, so I improvised. I tried a couple of pastry options with the tarts: Pepperidge Farm pastry shells, and regular pre-made pie crust (it comes in rolls). I cut the pie crust using a large biscuit cutter and shaped the dough in muffin tins. I rolled out the leftover dough so that one pie crust made a dozen petite shells. After baking, the shells had just enough room to hold a layer of custard and five or six small pieces of fruit on top. Like this:

Dessert went over very, very well. I will have to make these for a potluck this summer.

Posted by megabeth at 07:55 AM | Comments (5)

April 10, 2007

The second injection did not do anything much, and I was on the verge of considering visiting a neurosurgeon for a consultation. There comes a point when the pain has gone on too long that I would not care about the consequences of whatever action taken to try to fix the problem. If the doctor says I need to have my neck removed then I would be all for it.

But my bike team has a friend visiting this week from a place far away, and he is a PT/former pro cyclist who works on pro cyclists. He's been doing some work on me. In ten minutes' time, he had eliminated the spike of pain that was consistently emanating from the right side of the back of my neck. After the first session I was able to move my head all the way to the right, like a normal person can do. He thinks that by the end of the week he will have me (mostly) healed, and that the pain will have completely subsided in a month's time if I follow his orders and do the prescribed stretches regularly.

Anyhow, if I have any problems requiring PT in the future, I guess I will be taking a long plane trip.

My biggest frustration with this incident has been the inability of anyone in the medical field to pinpoint the source of the problem and fix it. If I had seen this miracle-working PT first, when I had been in pain for only a couple of weeks, this would not have dragged out into a 2-month long odyssey of suffering and the corresponding descent into near-insanity.

I suppose there is a bright side to everything. I've been enlightened as to how unhealthy it is to spend 40 hours a week sitting down in front of a computer, encased in a box under flourescent lights. The irony is that I need health insurance to deal with the health issues that arise from the employment that provides me with the health insurance.

Things are going to change.

Posted by megabeth at 09:40 AM | Comments (3)

April 01, 2007

My neck is slowly getting better. I still have a lot of soreness in the muscles of the neck, back and shoulder on the right side, and I still can't turn my head especially to the right side. I'm having a second epidural injection on Tuesday and I feel optimistic that it is going to finish off the problem (over the course of the two weeks following the procedure).

Now that the pain has become manageable, slowing down has been fun. I did some spring cleaning, some home improvement, and planted a vegetable garden and flowers.

Posted by megabeth at 10:02 PM | Comments (5)